The Ashvins vs Yama

The divine twin horsemen of the Rigveda, physicians of the gods who arrive in their chariot at dawn to heal the sick, rescue the shipwrecked, and restore youth to the old. More than fifty Rigvedic hymns are addressed to them.

Rigveda 10.17 says Saranyu, daughter of Tvashtar and wife of Vivasvat, bore the Ashvin brothers before leaving her children. Later tradition tells that she conceived them in the form of a mare.

The Ashvins are always paired and almost never distinguished. Their name means 'horsemen'; they are also called the Nasatyas. They drive a golden three-wheeled chariot and appear with the dawn, which ties them to Usha in the morning rites.

God of death and, in later tradition, the formal judge of the dead. The Rigveda names Yama as the first mortal to die, who found the path to the afterlife that all who follow him must travel; later texts make him ruler of Yamaloka and keeper of cosmic and moral order.

Yama, twin brother of Yami and son of the sun god Vivasvat, was the first mortal to die, and in dying he discovered the path to the afterlife. Later tradition made him the formal ruler of Yamaloka and judge of the dead, weighing each soul's deeds against dharma.

In the Rigveda, Yama is described as the first mortal to die, and in doing so, he discovered the path to the world of the dead that all mortals afterward must follow. He is the twin brother of Yami, and the Rigveda preserves a striking dialogue hymn between them in which Yami urges Yama toward union to continue humankind, which Yama refuses on grounds of the impropriety of union between twins — one of the earliest surviving explorations of incest taboo in Indian literature.